


The neon lights swaying in the cold city

by y0ui



Series: i write so much ranboo content [9]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Elytrian Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Enderian Ranboo (Video Blogging RPF), Enderman Ranboo (Video Blogging RPF), Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Hybrid Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Oneshot, Ranboo Angst (Video Blogging RPF), Ranboo-centric (Video Blogging RPF), This is for the new Modded SMP, no beta we die
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-18 13:01:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29368938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/y0ui/pseuds/y0ui
Summary: Ranboo, in his attempt to save a young and lost Enderman in the rain, ended up getting stuck with them. Ranboo isn't sure how long he can last out in the harmful weather.Phil comes to the rescue.
Relationships: Ranboo & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF)
Series: i write so much ranboo content [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2130402
Comments: 18
Kudos: 790





	The neon lights swaying in the cold city

**Author's Note:**

> (there is no confirmed name for it this new modded smp, and "origin smp" belongs to another active smp. i will update the tags when we get a confirmed title)
> 
> me when i write a oneshot abt a new smp idk the lore for yet *looks around whistles innocently* lmao i havent watched any of the streams (i haven't been able to) and yet i still wrote a oneshot for this. do not question me!!! 
> 
> the title is from NEON 1989 by yukika and idk what it means. i just like reading it?? also this not proofread or edited, ignore typos :p will be back to fix them later also WHAT IS WITH ME and writing stuff in like two sittings and posting them i have no impulse control LOL
> 
> o/
> 
> **EDIT:** so i definitely got my lore wrong T_T enderian and endermen are the same thing but my dumbass separated them anyway. so just for the context of this fic, assume that enderians and endermen are not the same but vaguely related. sort of like a descendant but ur the distant cousin of that descendant

Ranboo hated clouds. 

Clouds implied rain. Rain meant, at the very least, pain. Both physically and mentally. Do you know how painful it is to make plans with your friends only to cancel because you can’t leave your home because of the rain? Yeah. That hurts. Especially when it has to be last minute.

So when Ranboo excited the mineshaft he had been looting for the entire day and noticed the grey clouts, nothing other than hatred and dread filled him. Ranboo didn’t think the threat of rain would approach during his tasks underground. His stomach would drop just at the sight of the sad and dangerous clouds. Ranboo had left his protective armor that keeps him safe from water at home, set aside because it needed to be repaired. He had assumed it wouldn’t rain today because it was clear when he poked his head out the window in the morning. There weren’t _any_ implications of a downpour, but Ranboo messed up anyway.

“You have to be _kidding_ me,” The Enderian spat, brows furrowing.

With an annoyed groan, Ranboo tightened the small bag slung around his shoulders and began making his way back home. He needed to be speedy, both because it was nearly night time — which meant mobs — and obviously, the rain. He also wore weaker armor because he had yet to make a second pair of overpowered armor, which meant that fighting mobs would be more dangerous. This wasn’t going well for him, and not even worth it. His trip in the mineshaft had been far from successful, only walking away with some common ores and one enchanted book. One!

There was a chill in the air that set Ranboo more on edge than it would have normally done. The dread that Ranboo felt earlier washed over him again but he didn’t let it slow down his strides. Cold and chilly meant dark, dark meant night, night meant mobs, night implied rain, rain implied pain… The list goes on in the worst ways possible. 

“Stupid butterfly effect,” Ranboo grumbled to himself out loud, snapping a stick he had plucked off a tree at some point. He ducked under a branch that was sticking out awkwardly and shoved it right after to let out some of his pent up annoyance. Unsuccessful looting trip, he left his good armor at home, it’s about to start raining, everything felt like a waste of time.

Unfortunately, the forest didn’t last long, and Ranboo was going to eventually make it to a point where the forest thins out into the plains, where his home was. The Enderian could only pray that it wouldn’t start pouring before he got there. Why did he choose to live there? He knows he did it for Tubbo, but it’s still so dumb. But if anybody asked, he’d never move. He liked living next to Tubbo.

There was a gust of wind that snapped Ranboo out of his auto-pilot mode, flinching violently out of accidentally assuming that it had started raining. To his relief, it hadn’t, but the clouds above him were a whole lot darker than they were five minutes ago. Cringing, Ranboo considered picking up the pace and maybe start jogging. He had long legs, after all, it’ll make a difference. But then he remembered the iron and flint in his bag and decided that he didn’t want to burn from both fire and the rain.

This is just terrible. This all sucks. Ranboo hates this. Dragging a hand down his face, Ranboo muttered out, “I hate it here.”

When Ranboo thought things couldn’t get worse, he felt a sharp pain in his stomach, and his entire body stopped its speedwalking and jerked into a slow walk instead. Right after, Ranboo’s stomach growled for food and the Enderian was just about ready to scream his head off out of anger. Not only does the weather want to inconvenience him, but now his own _body?_

But then Ranboo’s blood went cold after he realized why he couldn’t pick up his walking pace. His body was starving for food. The food Ranboo didn’t _have._ “Crap, I– I finished the last of my bread before I left the mineshaft,” Ranboo whispered to himself in horror, ignoring the churning of anxiety and its newest addition, hunger, in his stomach. But Ranboo didn’t stop walking and kept going, powering through it, wanting to cover as much ground as possible. Now that he thought about it, he couldn’t teleport now either, now that his body doesn’t have the energy for it.

“I don’t even have any rotten flesh. Not even rotten flesh! How do I not have that?!” Ranboo whisper yelled at himself, hands rummaging through his small bag. He didn’t even have a golden apple, which is what people usually leave a mineshaft with at the very least. Mind racing, Ranboo continued his walking and didn’t stop, ignoring the pain spikes from his hunger.

“Do I build a shelter?” Ranboo asked himself, brows furrowing. Then, he shook his head. “No, no. Not a good idea, I’d need to collect materials for that and… And by then, it’ll probably be raining, and I’m not sure if I’ll have enough energy f–” Ranboo caught a glint of red in the corner of his eye and gasped in delight. 

“An apple! An _apple!_ Oh, thank God! I almost missed it!” Ranboo cried, his worries muting themselves for a moment while he backtracked to where he saw the apple. He made his way up to it and reached out and, with gentle hands, plucked the vibrant red fruit off the branch it was hanging on. Ranboo wasn’t sure if it was because he was hungry, but this was by far one of the prettiest and healthiest apples he’s seen. It’s probably hunger speaking, but it doesn’t matter.

“I should wait to eat this,” Ranboo told himself, staring down at the apple longingly. Despite the wishes of his stomach, Ranboo knew it’d be smarter to eat the food when he was at the end of the line with his energy. Not while he still had energy to spare. It’ll run out faster and he’ll just end up being hungrier. With a sigh, Ranboo shoved the pretty red apple into his bag and began walking again. Thankfully, it hadn’t started raining yet, but the clouds only became more and more menacing to Ranboo as time went on.

And then, about five to eight minutes later, he heard it. 

_Drip._

Ranboo froze, and one of his elflike ears flickered towards the sound, listening carefully to his surroundings. He was picking up normal sounds like rustling grass, chittering animals, the occasional chirp of a bird or creature from afar or in the sky. He was also listening out for a sound that wasn’t as casual in this area.

_Drip, drip._

Ranboo’s mind tried to rationalize what the noise was. Was it a drooling animal? Condensation dripping from somewhere? A peeing animal? (if so, that animal is peeing _incredibly_ loudly) Or was it… 

_Drip, drip, dripdrip, dr–_

_Ssss!_

Ranboo yelped when a droplet of water hit his cheek and sizzled, burned, and evaporated, leaving a small flushed mark from where it once landed. Now, Ranboo could acknowledge the fear and panic that he had been ignoring and shoving down at the back of his mind since the moment he had stepped out of the mineshaft. And then, he confronted the new and current situation he was now in.

It’s raining. 

“Oh, my God. Oh no. It’s raining,” Ranboo whispered to himself in fear, his ears tilting downwards in reflection to his emotions. Slowly, he turned around and stared in horror at the treeline of the forest he had just exited. He was now in the middle of a plains biome, two thirds of the way home. He could either take shelter back in the forest and dig himself a hole and hide in it until it was safe to come out (he’d definitely get at least a cold, though), or eat the apple he had gotten earlier and sprint all the way home before the rain got heavy.

Ranboo exhaled shakily, curling his shaking hands into determined fists. He’ll sprint the rest of th– 

“No, crap, that might not work,” Ranboo muttered to himself, flinching when another rain droplet hit him. Ranboo needed time to eat the apple, he can’t walk too fast while eating, or else he’d get sick and possibly throw up, which isn’t what he needed right now. 

Ranboo pulled the apple out of his bag anyway, deicing that he’ll take small bites and power through it like he has been for the last half hour. He concluded that either way, he was going to get rained on at least a little bit and he was going to suffer. He just needed to accept it. 

God, all of this trouble and pain is not worth it. 

Suppressing every single emotion other than forced determination, Ranboo took a bite of the apple he had collected earlier and forced himself into a sprint. The pain in his stomach left, canceled out by the raindrops that were hitting Ranboo’s skin and burning. He kept his eyes shut, squinting them open every so often, not wanting his eyes to get burned. 

For the past half hour, Ranboo kept saying to himself, “It can’t get any worse than this.” Every single time, the universe proved him wrong and decided to throw shit in the fan and make his day even more terrible than it was before. But, at this point, while he was running through (getting to the point of) pouring rain, past mobs that were beginning to come out of the shadows, running on little to no food, with terrible loot that hung on his shoulders so heavily that it made his shoulders sore, Ranboo thought that it doesn’t get worse than this. 

Turns out, the universe loved proving him wrong.

There was a screech in a pitch that most living things couldn’t handle. It was a screech from an Enderman. The screech was always used when an Enderman was attacked or being harmed in some way. Ranboo knew how to screech like that, but it only ever came out when he experienced true pain or fear. 

Normally, Enderman ignore Ranboo or think of him as below them, treating him with less respect. Ranboo is Enderian, not an Enderman. He is merged with their type, but he is not one of them. However, he still deals with a lot of their quirks, like being unable to hold eye contact and the whole issue with water. Their biggest difference is that Ranboo doesn’t hold chunks of the earth as Enderman do, and instead just always needed something in his hand to hold or fidget with. If not, he’d start picking at skin or pulling at the ends of his clothes (and ruining them), just in general get fidgety and nervous.

In return to Endermen’s behavior towards Ranboo, Ranboo ignored them, respected them, and left them be. Deep down, he wishes to connect with the kind that he’s related to, but there was nothing he could do about it. At least, as far as he knew.

So, when he heard a screech in a pitch that most living things can’t handle, Ranboo almost ignored it. Almost. The one thing that kept him from tuning it out was how much weaker the screech was, along with how it was much higher up in tone than most Endermen. It made him hesitate, and stop running. He told himself that it was because he needed to take another bite of his apple, which is what he did, and not because the screech sounded suspiciously like… 

Ranboo shook his head, “No, I just heard it wrong or something,” He told himself, hissing in pain when several rain droplets hit him in the face. But he heard the screech again, and Ranboo spun around. 

His eyes landed on a small, curled up Enderman, hands on their head as their body was attacked with purple particles. 

A child.

And then, Ranboo was hit with a wave of flashbacks. Flashbacks to when he was seven and lost in the middle of a plains field, screaming and crying out in pain and fear as the rain attacked him relentlessly. And the rain kept going and going, burning his delicate and soft skin. No matter where he ran, there was no shelter, and the pain and fatigue caught up to him and he remembers collapsing onto his knees, his entire body shaking. The rain struck repeatedly him all the way to the point where he lost all feeling from the overload of pain and passed out. The entire time, he was crying for help, for an answer for what to do, for what was happening. 

Suddenly, Ranboo’s hunger and minuscule burns on his skin meant nothing as he began running over to the screaming child, discarding his apple onto the ground.

The child didn’t seem to notice him approaching, curled up with their hands covering their head, still screaming in what Ranboo has now registered in pain. Slowly, the teen crouched down and reached out to wrap his arms around the child. The child’s screeching halted, realizing that they were no longer being hit in the rain, and now being surrounded by a half and half… Something. It radiated a little bit of the magic that the Child knew they have. 

Then, Ranboo forced out in Endspeak, _“You’re safe.”_

The child made a chittering noise and curled farther into Ranboo, mumbling something that Ranboo couldn’t register through the pain he was going through. The rain had picked up and Ranboo was beginning to think that this was a bad idea. He didn’t regret it, not at all, but it was a bad idea. 

“I should e–” Ranboo bit back a gasp of pain when the wind picked up and the rain started hitting him at a different angle, “I should eat my a– apple.” Shakily, Ranboo reached towards his bag and then froze. He had dropped his apple when he ran over to the child he was covering. 

Ranboo would’ve screamed in annoyance had he not been trying to keep a kid from dying in his arms. 

With the thought of food, his body ached, finally acknowledging that it was hungry and weak and needed energy. Ranboo’s vision started to get spotted with black dots, but Ranboo bit his tongue and shook his head. No, if he passes out, then he’ll die, and then the child will too and all of this was for nothing. His last resort was his communicator, tucked away in his pocket. He had been repeatedly checking it, but nobody was awake. 

“I don’t have a choice,” Ranboo whispered out, voice strained. The pain was beginning to get to him, but he continued to deal with it for the sake of the child he was protecting. With a horribly trembling hand, Ranboo pulled out his communicator and began typing to the first person he saw on the list of people he could message. He began typing something out with his thumb, finding the task difficult with his shaking hands.

_ <Ranboo> jh _

“C-Crap,” The teen rasped, cursing his trembling. He began typing again, noticing that his vision was becoming spotty again. 

_ <Ranboo> ehle _

_ <Ranboo> p _

_ <Ranboo> Hppp[ _

_ <Ranboo> ehlp _

_ <Ranboo> plekse _

That would do. That would do, Ranboo told himself, curling around the child under him before passing out.

When Ranboo opens his eyes, which he doesn’t know how much later it was, but the rain had stopped hitting him but he was still sitting on the grass and Ranboo could see rain still hitting the ground around him and the child. Well, that's strange. 

“Wh... What is–”

Somebody gently shushed him. “You’ve got real bravery, kid, for risking your life like this,” Said a familiar voice. 

_Phil._

“Phil,” Ranboo murmured weakly, piecing it together that one of Phil’s wings was protecting him and the child, and that Phil himself was beside Ranboo. Phil smiled warmly, though his eyes held concern. 

“You should start carrying around an umbrella,” Was the last thing Ranboo heard before he passed out again.

* * *

When Ranboo woke, it was warm. 

And then his blood ran cold. 

He shot up, eyes wide as words began tumbling out of his mouth, not caring if he might be the only one in whoever’s room this was. “The kid, the– the child, where– that– the young Enderm– Where–”

“Woah! Woah, chill out, you’re safe,” Phil’s voice broke through Ranboo’s panic. It didn’t soothe it, though. 

“The– That kid, Phil, where did they go? Where–” A distressed enderman-like chirp escaped Ranboo unwillingly. Desperately, the teen asked, “Where are they, Phil?!” 

Then, all of the pain decided to catch up right there. The burns that were now treated and wrapped _screamed,_ sending waves of pain so strong it left Ranboo disoriented for a second.

“Safe!” Phil said through Ranboo’s panic, grabbing his shoulders and holding him still. “That child is safe, Ranboo. They fell asleep standing. They’re _fine._

“Where?” Ranboo asked urgently. His arms hurt. So did his knees, and his chest.

Phil’s expression hardened and then melted into defeat. “I won’t be able to stop you, huh?” Ranboo shook his head. Phil sighed and stood up, holding out an arm for Ranboo to take and use for support.

Slowly, Phil helped Ranboo up the stairs, Phil practically carrying Ranboo with how much Phil was supporting him. When they finally reached the top floor the child was on, Ranboo was ready to pass out and fall asleep again. The rush of shock that he was running on from when he woke up had worn off. 

“There,” Phil whispered, pointing to the other side of the room. Ranboo looked over and there was the child he had rescued last night, standing up straight with their eyes closed, a chunk of grass in their hands. (Endermen slept standing up, and usually with a block in their hands)

“Thank God,” Ranboo sighed, relief flooding through him. Finally, _finally,_ he could relax. As Phil led Ranboo to a nearby bed, Phil asked, “So, what even happened?”

Ranboo sighed, sitting down into the mattress and closing his eyes for a moment. He collected himself before speaking. “I went to check out and loot a mineshaft, and when I came out, it was going to rain soon. I had run out of food so I had to walk. It started raining by the time I got to the plains and I ran into that kid and protected them.”

Phil whistled. “Jeez. That sounds rough. I’m glad you’re safe now.” Phil spared a glance at the child across the room. “Them, too.”

“Yeah,” Ranboo murmured. “Yeah, me too.”

Seven hours later, after Ranboo sleeping for six and the child for all seven, the two finally got to talk. Ranboo sat on the bed he had fallen asleep on, leaning his back against the wall for support. The child was a few feet away from the bed. 

_“Thank you,”_ The child murmured, their voice small. Ranboo’s eyes widened. This little Enderman boy was just like him when he was his age. It’s kind of terrifying, actually. 

Smiling gently, Ranboo nodded. _“Of course,”_ He grinned. The child hesitantly smiled back, his expression small and nervous but still nonetheless sweet. Ranboo glanced out the window for a moment, staring at the sun as he let himself think for a moment. 

_“Go home,”_ He said. _“Please don’t play in the rain again.”_

The little boy giggled and nodded before poofing away, leaving a small burst of purple particles behind. They faded away in a few moments.

Ranboo won’t be visiting a mineshaft for a while. 

**Author's Note:**

> adding on to the oneshot: the child visits ranboo regularly. eventually, they become best friends, and then ranboo gets introduced the enderman kid's family and he gets accepted into it o7 
> 
> comments always make my day (as well as kudos) so drop one if u like!! i love interacting with u guys T_T
> 
> (and if u want, come say hi on my [tumblr!](https://youiii.tumblr.com/))


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